The Quiet Destruction of a Man Named Mycroft
by Laughable Breakdowns
Summary: "It was not a difficult deduction. The people around him were not, Mycroft realised, ignorant of his problem. They simply did not care. Mycroft was eighteen years old, slowly eating himself to death." TW: Eating disorder (BED and Bulimia)


**The Quiet Destruction of a Man Named Mycroft**

**A/N: This idea has been festering in my mind for quite some time and I needed to get it out. This was hard to write. A reminder that, PLEASE, if you're easily triggered DO NOT read this! **

Food had always been there for Mycroft Holmes when no one else was. When his father barked orders at him and his younger brother Sherlock, to "GET YOUR ASSES MOVING!" or "STAND UP STRAIGHT, I WON'T HAVE YOU BOYS BEING LAZY IN MY HOUSE!", when they would reply with a quiet "Yes, father," food was there. When Mycroft and Sherlock's mother was laying in her deathbed, dying from an inoperable tumor, food was there. While Sherlock seemed to retreat deep into himself, focusing on his experiments and sometimes forgetting to eat for days, Mycroft hurt himself in the form of binge-eating. He played games with himself, seeing how much he could stuff down his throat before he was unable to move, stomach distended and hard like a rock.

In a family that prided itself on its intelligence, Mycroft found it laughable how his father never seemed to notice. Even the maids, who tidied his bedroom daily, never inquired about why his trash cash was overflowing with food wrappers, his floor and bed sheets covered with crumbs.

The only person who knew was Sherlock, but he never expressed any concern. To the youngest Holmes, Mycroft's habit seemed to be a result of lack of self control. His older brother was a weak link. Sherlock did nothing but sneer and poke fun at Mycroft as he descended, slowly, into his inescapable hole. Sherlock was only eleven and yet he had already adopted the values of the Holmes family. Appearance, self control and money.

It was not a difficult deduction. The people around him were not, Mycroft realised, ignorant of his problem.

They simply did not care.

Mycroft was eighteen years old, slowly eating himself to death.

* * *

Five years after, Mycroft was twenty-three and had been attempting a diet for the better part of four years. The constant nagging from his father and brother, pokes and jabs (_more like kicks and punches_, he mused) about his weight and how embarrassing he was to the family had led to him trying to cut back on his food intake. He would be fine for a month or two, cutting his calories down to less than 1000 a day. But, as always, eventually what had started as a salad would turn into a salad and pasta, and then a cake, and cookies, a bag of crisps and a few glasses of milk to wash it all down. He would feel immensely guilty afterwards, coming out of his stupor to realise what he had done, and he would stop eating for a few days in order to off-set the damage.

Meanwhile, Sherlock was sixteen and a horrendous rebel. He seemed to finally realise how mistreated he had been as a child and began to do everything in his power to upset their father, thus upsetting Mycroft who had to pick up the pieces. He was used to dealing with Sherlock's shenanigans, though, and simply put up with it. Life was, in general, not horrible. Mycroft was satisfied. He was losing weight and it seemed that his father was finally proud of him. It was a cool, distant 'proud' that was communicated through nods, affectionate harrumphs and hard smacks on the back, but it was pride nonetheless.

In fact, Mycroft had been doing well with his diet for a blissful three months, finally getting the hang of restricting calories. His father was so supportive of Mycroft's diet that he never even forced him to eat, simply giving his eldest son an appraising look when he told his father that he wasn't hungry. Besides, Mycroft reasoned, he was legally an adult and thus had full control over his eating schedule. Mycroft had lost three stone during this go at the diet and he wasn't planning to stop anytime soon. He weighed fifteen stone now, and although he was still overweight (_or horrifically, disgustingly obese, _he thought angrily), it seemed that he was no longer the embarrassment that he once was. Still embarrassing, of course. But less so.

Things were as fine as they ever got in the Holmes family.

Until Sherlock ran away from home.

Three frantic, horrible days were spent looking for him, thinking the worst and wondering why the police were so awfully incompetent that it took them three days to find a (most probably) drugged out teenage boy. Mycroft swung between eating everything in sight and running up and down the multiple flights of stairs in the Holmes Manor to try and burn off the revoltingly large amount of calories he had ingested. He tried not to think too much; he wasn't sure what would happen if he did.

They finally found Sherlock unconscious, lying in a pile of mud and grime in a back-alley, just recently overdosed on cocaine. He was still alive, although his body felt as though it were on fire and he was barely breathing. He was shipped to the hospital as a high-priority patient and was stabilised. It was announced that he would live.

But Mycroft wasn't sure thathe himself would survive the night. He knew that he should have been looking after his brother. After all, Sherlock was his responsibility. It was sickening to think that his younger – and only – brother had almost died on his watch. _I was supposed to take care of him. _

So Mycroft coped the only way he knew how.

He ate.

He opened cartons of ice cream – vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, such utterly boring flavours that simply screamed Holmes Family - and ate them with his left hand, shoveling fistfuls of cereal into his mouth with his right. He cooked rice and pasta and soup, listening to the soft chorus of sizzling oil and boiling water as he ripped open packets of chocolate and boxes of crackers, frantically emptying them into his mouth. He ate until he felt that he would be sick and then he kept eating. He ate until his stomach hurt to touch and he felt bile rising in his throat. Then he ran to the toilet to be sick.

When he was finished vomiting, he lay on the washroom floor for what felt like hours. The tile was cool on his cheeks. He wiped a string of saliva and stomach acid from his face. He brushed his teeth. His eyes were bloodshot and sad. He ran a shaky hand through his hair and went to go tidy up the kitchen before the maids came upstairs.

* * *

Fast forward nineteen years, to the present. Mycroft's father is dead, twelve years ago, a lost battle with lung-cancer. The Holmes Manor, two-thirds of his father's money and his job went to Mycroft. The rest went to Sherlock, who, only three years ago, had gotten out of a rehabilitation centre for seemingly the last time.

Against what Mycroft had predicted, his brother had not relapsed again after he got out. Instead, he settled down (as much as Sherlock Holmes COULD settle down) in a flat on Baker Street with a crippled army doctor named John Watson.

John is stupendously ordinary and quite kind. He keeps Sherlock busy and clean. Sherlock is happy and Mycroft is glad for his brother.

But Mycroft himself is no happier than he was nineteen years ago. He is now forty-two years of age, with thinning hair and a face that resembles a strange species of bird. He weighs 13.5 stone, which is too much. It's always too much.

Mycroft found out nineteen years ago that if you vomit up the food that you binge on, you don't gain as much weight. He was unsure, at the time, why he hadn't thought of that beforehand, but now he wishes that he never had. His teeth are destroyed from the damage that his stomach acid has done to them. They are yellow and so sensitive that he cannot drink cool water anymore. He has scars on his knuckles from scraping them against his teeth when he used to shove them down his throat.

He hasn't had to use his fingers in fifteen years; recently he vomits as soon as he puts anything into his stomach. Even his body rejects food now. He has not eating in three weeks.

He 'recovers' for a year or so and then starts up again. He cannot stop.

He is always tired. Some days he finds it hard to get out of bed. His muscles cramp at night and he cannot sleep. He hides his jaundiced skin underneath the concealer that he makes his assistant, Anthea, buy for him. She knows his secret (_of course she does) _but he threatens to fire her if she tries to stop him. He keeps himself amused by bugging his brother's flat and watching him. He puts on a mask and keeps up his façade because it's the only thing he's ever known.

He is killing himself. He cannot remember anything other than this.

He doesn't care.

Then Sherlock jumps off the roof of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. It is Jim Moriarty's doing. Moriarty is found on top of the roof with a bullet in his brain. There is blood everywhere.

It is Mycroft's fault.

His brother lies cold, dead and alone in St. Bartholomew's morgue. Mycroft was meant to protect his brother no matter what. He has failed.

John is lost. Molly Hooper is lost. Mrs. Hudson is lost. Mycroft is lost.

Sherlock is dead.

When the eldest Holmes hears the news, he does not binge. He does not vomit. He does not exercise or scream or put on a brave face.

He stares straight ahead for a long time. Then he puts his head in his hands and cries. At first he cries softly, muffling his sobs and moans so that his bodyguards and his maids and Anthea will not hear. Then he cries loudly – large, gasping sobs that wrack his body and leave him exhausted. He falls asleep in his chair.

When he wakes up, there is a bowl of soup and a glass of water next to him. They seem to stare at him in anticipation of something, wondering what will happen next. He picks of the bowl of soup and eats it slowly. He stomach rebels but he swallows the vomit that rises in his throat. The soup is luke-warm.

When he is finished eating he goes to the washroom. He doesn't throw up. Instead, he looks at himself in the mirror. He sees his brittle, thinning hair, his yellow teeth, his blood-shot eyes. He stares at himself for a long time. Then he undresses and has a shower. The water is hot and it feels good as it runs down his back. When he's shampooing his hair, a reddish-brown clump comes out in his hand. He rinses it down the drain.

He wraps himself in a soft, fluffy blue bathroom and pads into the kitchen. He is strangely at peace. For once he is not ravenously hungry. He feels relaxed and calm.

His maids and his body-guards are nowhere to be seen. Anthea is in the sitting-room. He pours himself a glass of water and sits down across from her.

She is fiddling around on her blackberry and looks up when Mycroft sits down. She seems surprised. While Mycroft has taken obsessive care to keep up his act around his brother and his brother's friends, he never pretends to be okay when he is at home. Anthea has seen him at his worst.

"Hello, sir." Anthea smiles cautiously.

Mycroft looks at her for a moment before smiling back. It is a genuine smile and it feels strange. "I believe," he begins, clasping his hands on his lap, "that we should go out today. I am in dire need of a break that has been postponed for much too long."

Anthea stares at him for a moment before looking down at her blackberry again. "Yes, of course, sir. Where would you like to go?"

Mycroft stands up, taking his water glass with him. "You can choose, Anthea. I'm sure that you know best."

Anthea smiles at the compliment, still looking at her blackberry, and Mycroft begins to walk out of the room. He stops when he hears Anthea's voice behind him.

"Sir?"

He turns around and she's looking at him, seemingly taking in his appearance. She is not an unintelligent woman. He knows what she's thinking. He is showered, in a good mood, and now he wants to go out. She believes that he had finally hit his last straw. He has snapped. He is probably planning his suicide right now, for all she knows.

"Yes, Anthea?"

Concern is evident on her face. Mycroft notices that she did not sleep very well last night. She has dark circles under her eyes.

She hesitates before speaking. "…Did you eat the soup, Mr. Holmes?"

Mycroft nods.

"Yes, Anthea, I did."

He walks up the winding stair case to his bedroom, where he takes off his dressing robe and looks at his body in the mirror. He has a belly. His skin is yellow and sagging. His thighs are large.

He dresses in his finest suit and chooses a deep red tie with dark blue stripes. He admires his outfit in the mirror.

He walks downstairs and into the kitchen, where the chef is preparing breakfast. He looks up when Mycroft walks in.

"Hello, Mr. Holmes." The chef smiles warmly. "Are you hungry this morning?"

Mycroft assesses himself. His stomach feels empty. It growls.

"Yes," he says, smiling self consciously. He is not used to admitting things like this. "I believe I am."

He walks into the dining room and sits down at the table. It was his great grand-father's. It is made of mahogany. One of the maids brings out a bowl of porridge with cinnamon on top. He knows that they are giving him soft food because they know that hard food will hurt his teeth. He places his napkin on his lap and stares at the porridge.

It glares back at him like an enemy waiting to be conquered.

Mycroft swallows.

He lifts up his spoon, scoops up some porridge and blows on it, inhaling the comforting scent. His stomach rumbles loudly.

He thinks of his father, always pestering him about his weight, about his looks, about his grades, about his life. He thinks of Jim Moriarty, the psychopathic Consulting Criminal. He thinks of John Watson, the good doctor. He thinks of Anthea, his assistant and friend. He thinks of Sherlock, who used to be the only Consulting Detective in the world. _When he was younger, _Mycroft remembers, _he wanted to be a pirate_. He presses a hand to his chest and feels his heart beating, a soft yet steady rhythm. He closes his eyes.

_I am not afraid._

_I am not afraid._

_I am not afraid._

Mycroft raises the spoon to his lips and, carefully, takes a bite.

END

"_I am. I am. I am."_

_- Sylvia Plath_


End file.
